


I Feel a Change (in the Love I'm Given)

by sweeterthankarma



Category: SKAM (France)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Gen, Mother-Daughter Relationship, cryptic pregnancy, post 7X05
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-19
Updated: 2021-03-19
Packaged: 2021-03-28 02:08:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,309
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30132381
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sweeterthankarma/pseuds/sweeterthankarma
Summary: “My arm is going numb.” Max finally gets out. He looks pained, gaze darting between Tiff and Moira, fast asleep and unmoving, the heaviness of her head pressed against the green of his sweater.“Story of my life,” Tiff replies. “Get used to it.”or, the day after their first kiss, Max comes over to spend time with Tiff and Moïra.
Relationships: Max Bernini & Moïra Prigent, Max Bernini/Tiffany Prigent, Moïra Prigent & Tiffany Prigent
Comments: 8
Kudos: 19





	I Feel a Change (in the Love I'm Given)

**Author's Note:**

> Title comes from the song "Love I'm Given" by Ellie Goulding.

It’s hard for Tiff to decide who to focus on: Max, beaming, bright-eyed and grinning more than she thinks she’s maybe ever seen him; or Moïra, wrapped up in a polka dotted onesie, drooling on Max’s palm, warm and well and content. __

It’s strange to think that Moïra is something Tiff has created, someone that came to life and bloomed inside of her. Even stranger considering that she did so without Tiff’s knowledge, without her love and anticipation, without the nerves nearly every mother in the world grows to embrace, to miss once they’re gone. If Tiff could do it all again, prepare herself, get the basics of parenting down (even if only in her mind) long before she ever had to actually practice them, she would. No hesitation, no need to ask twice. 

Yet here Moïra is anyway, accepting the motherhood Tiff offers to her now without knowing any better that she didn’t have it mere weeks ago. When Tiff looks at her— the oddest and the best and the most perfect thing Tiff has ever known— all she can feel is joy. 

Moïra is her own person, of course, but she’s  _ Tiff’s,  _ too. Tiff’s never had anything, much less anyone, in her life like this. 

She’s never really had a boyfriend, either, or at least not in the way that she does now. There have been guys, of course, but none that have made things as simple as headphones or an open hand feel like the most genuine gesture offered in the history of mankind. 

Max’s eyes flit up to hers, deep brown and disbelieving when Moïra makes a sound akin to a squeak from her perch in his arms. Tiff’s stomach turns over on itself, does a somersault. She feels simultaneously thirty and thirteen, going from fetching hot milk bottles to nervously reapplying chapstick in the mirror, standing giddy by the door while waiting for Max to rap his knuckles against it. 

“She’s so cute,” Max murmurs for maybe the tenth time all afternoon. He said the same thing to Tiff when she invited him in,  _ elle est _ replaced with _ vous êtes, _ the words directed at her instead of Moïra. They tasted sweet on her lips when she kissed him, brief but lingering. She reminisces on it now like it was some relic of the past rather than a mere thirty minutes ago.

“I know.” 

The couch fits three, but about half of it is covered with Moïra’s clothes and snacks, all bright colors and textured fabrics cluttering up the house. It leaves Tiff side by side with Max, almost flush, their legs touching. When Moïra shifts in Max’s arms, settling in to sleep, Max gasps, whisper-quiet. Stunned, he nudges Tiff’s shoulder, half-leaning on her, and ends up staying there. 

Tiff tries not to stare at him. The sharpness of his jawline, angled in a curve she remembers fitting her palm into last night. Soft pricks of his beard, always cleanly trimmed. The fullness of his lips, moving, saying barely audible, invisible words to Moïra, lulling her. The bristle in his left eyebrow, the tiny scar below that same eye. She’d only just noticed it last night, in the glow of the hallway when he kissed her once more before heading home.

Tiff  _ tries  _ not to stare at him, or at least not be so obvious. She fails either way. Max’s smile is unfading, fixed, and she knows he must feel her eyes on him.

“She likes you.”

Max looks up, grinning even more than before. There’s a comment on Tiff’s tongue about how he shouldn’t get too excited— Moïra’s too young to really have preferences, she likes just about anyone who gives her attention and a fresh diaper— but she keeps it to herself. She gets the appeal, the wonder of it all. When Tiff held her for the first time and she didn’t immediately scream, Tiff found it to be a lot of things, but most especially flattering. She won’t admit, at least not yet to anyone who isn’t the social worker, that holding Moïra in that ivory clinic room felt right, like what she was waiting for, what she needed. What they both needed. It felt like fate. 

Max looks back down at Moïra. His thumbs tucks into her tiny palm, tan against pink, and he marvels for a minute longer. Tiff does too.

“She must take after her mother, then,” Max finally says. His gaze, when it lifts, is both expectant and tentative.

“What?” Tiff absolutely fails, almost immediately, at whatever faux-joking tactic she’s attempting. Max leans in just a millisecond closer to her and just like that, she’s a goner, her lips turning up into a smile she can’t fight even if she tried. And there’s no point in trying, not now and not with Max here, right where she wants him. 

There’s too many thoughts in Tiff’s head. Buzzing, whirling, she’s crushing hard and Max knows it. Has maybe known it for a while now, since the moment they sat side by side in a dumpy bar only to get kicked out and run full speed ahead down an equally dumpy street in some arrondissement Tiff never used to frequent.

Max beams at her. Still, Tiff keeps up the ruse.

“Who says I like you? That’s a funny thing for someone to say.”

Tiff’s cheeks are pink, the same color as her sweater, stained with Moïra’s spit-up and apple juice. She’s pretty sure there’s an adhesive wrapper from the packages of one of Moïra’s pacifiers clinging to her right sleeve. If Max feels it when she presses a hand to his shoulder blades, pulls him in until his forehead tilts against hers, he doesn’t let on about it.

“I don’t like you,” Tiff taunts, her inflection slow and nearly dripping with affection. “That’s ridiculous.”

She mumbles and there’s a purposeful drag of her upper lip against his lower one; Tiff opens her eyes enough to see his reaction. Max’s eyes are blown, already watching her. 

Just like last night, Tiff is the one to kiss him first. He tastes like fresh air. But he’s just as insistent now, in the daylight of her living room, as he was at dusk yesterday. He’s eager and wanting and he laughs against her mouth, all the while being gentle as not to wake Moïra, who has decided now is an opportune time to nap. 

Tiff pulls away, murmurs a “seriously, who would ever think I liked you?” against his cheek. Her hand traces his cheekbone and she dips back in, the slip of their mouths together still so new but already somewhat familiar. When his tongue slips against her parted lips, she knows exactly how to tilt her head, let him in, tuck her hand around the nape of his neck. 

Max smells like mint and paint and Tiff makes a mental note to ask him about it later, figure out what kind of art he’s into, if he’d be willing to show her— maybe even teach her, or paint something for Moïra’s room. She’d even commission him, pay him, just for a deeper look inside his mind.

“My arm is going numb.” Max finally gets out. He looks pained, gaze darting between Tiff and Moïra, fast asleep and unmoving, the heaviness of her head pressed against the green of his sweater. 

“Story of my life,” Tiff replies. “Get used to it.”

There’s a difference in Max’s smile then, in the way he leans in to steal one last kiss from her before relaxing against the couch. Tiff sees it, feels it, hears the words he doesn’t say:  _ I hope I will. _

Moïra is Tiff’s, something greater than she knew she even wanted. And maybe, even though they’re barely a day into this official relationship thing, Max might get to be hers, too. 

**Author's Note:**

> If you enjoyed, please let me know! Comments and kudos make my day. 
> 
> Come say hi and talk to me about the Skamverse at my Tumblr blog [here](https://sweeterthankarma.tumblr.com/) or at my Twitter account [here!](https://twitter.com/sweeterthnkarma)


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